


Exuviation

by Varjo



Series: Timeline [3]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: 'cause frankly I don't care, Ancient Egypt, Aziraphale only enters in the last chapter, Crowley has whatever gonad you want her to, Mild Sexual Content, Other, Self-Esteem Issues, She/Her Pronouns for Crowley (Good Omens)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-29
Updated: 2020-09-05
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:01:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26176132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Varjo/pseuds/Varjo
Summary: Crawly hides in Egypt after his Fall, under the guise of a completely new identity, hoping Hell will be thrown - or: disinterested - enough not to find her, or even care to. One creature, however, still manages to turn her up. What might Lilith want from her?
Relationships: Crowley/Lilith (Good Omens)
Series: Timeline [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1842865
Comments: 4
Kudos: 2





	1. Chapter 1

In the aftermath of his fall, Crawly felt the utter need to rebel.

He had tried. Honest to God, he had given Hell its fair chance, stayed there for a couple of weeks, looked at things, talked to the other Fallen, went about his newly assigned job, found it appalling. He couldn't even put his finger on what was wrong – or everything that was wrong – a blanket ‘appalling’ over everything that seemed to be happening on a daily basis seemed to cut it just as well.

If it just had been boring, or cruel, or miles away from the stars he had worked on before, Crawly could have worked with that. Of course, he understood; there were only so many stars and constellations and planets and moons and galaxies and black holes that one could place, even on such an extensive canvas as the universe, and you could hardly start stacking them, could you?

If it would just have been the bureaucracy and the dogmatics and the utter narrow-mindedness that seemed to have translated seamlessly from Above to there, he would probably merely have cracked a smile and went on.

But it was all of these things. All and probably a whole array of things the demon hadn’t quite experienced yet.

So, as Crawly’s appeal for a surface job had been granted, he had not cast a look back at Hell upon leaving. Once on earth, breathing the clean air and peering out into silent nothingness, he had finally comprehended how… vile all of this was. Not only Downstairs. Downstairs took the cake, really, but Upstairs hadn't exactly made a flawless impression either.

Therefore, Crawly had decided to rid himself of both – which had, consequently, meant ridding himself of Crawly. If he wanted to rebel, he had known, it would have to mean total rebellion – rejection of everything that had been before, ever. It was a disgusting, almost slimy sensation that he experienced while glancing down his physique, while thinking his name, while remembering the feathered appendages that he had so diligently hidden against his back for the moment.

Everything about this was wrong.

It irked Crawly that he seemed to be powerless about most of ‘this’. For some time – he couldn’t tell how much – he just stumbled around, seeking shelter and anonymity, endlessly disgusted with the whole of creation, loathing with every fibre of his being that he had to be a part of it. He starved and thirsted and was agitated that it had no effect on him. Nothing of this was right. Nothing of this was remotely ‘good’, as the Almighty seemed to have thought when She devised all this.

Then he was picked up by a caravan of traders, in the middle of a desert, and he decided to let himself be picked up and ferried to their civilization. They had seen his snake eyes and been in immediate awe, believed him to be a kind of blessed or beloved of certain gods whose names and descriptions he didn’t actually catch – Crawly noticed and acknowledged it, but not much more. He walked with them next to donkeys pulling carts and carrying bags of various goods, all the time mostly staring at his feet and listening to the voices of the talking humans. Their language was alien to him, but he could make educated guesses – his supernatural nature helped and at the same time didn’t help at all.

Crawly had the odd feeling that he wanted to belong with them – a sensation that he hadn’t felt since the rebels had taken him in. But he was too well aware that it was not possible. They were human. He was… something else. He didn’t even quite know what to call himself anymore. There didn’t seem to be a word anymore that he could safely and snugly nestle his identity into. It felt odd to him that he had ever been nice and comfortable with calling himself an angel.

It was only when they had entered their town – busy and colourful and loud – that he perked up a bit, lifted his head and looked around with some curiosity.

Crawly didn’t stay long with the merchant; he thanked him for the safe passage and broke away to, for some weeks, stroll around the city and take it in.

It was wonderful – there was no better, no different word to put it. Each of Crawly’s breaths seemed to pull a new aroma into his system; he tasted beer and bread, figs and pomegranates and other fruits of the river the people called ‘Nile,’ and he heard the sweetest sounds at the courts of monarchs and in temples into which he was only allowed because nobody would notice that red-haired stranger. Strangers weren’t allowed in the holy places, after all – only priests and priestesses were.

Only after he had understood quite a bit of the people’s ways, he decided to try blending in with them.

After changing his features for a more slight, feminine look, retaining as a keepsake the amber snake eyes, he shaved off all his red hair, tossing it unceremoniously into the river Nile, and replaced it with a black, braided, chin-length wig. He accented his eyes with khol, which also helped keeping the flies at bay, and after familiarizing himself with the attire choices of the time and region, opted for a thin, flowy garment that was fixed around his midriff and covered him to the ankles, leaving the chest uncovered except for two broad, marvellously decorated straps. He picked out jewellery – mostly snake-themed, but not too showy, as not to attract too much attention.

The last step, however, was the most important. In rejection of everything he had been before, Crawly ousted Crawly fully and assumed a new identity. He, now a she, assumed the stance of a priestess of Wadjet, the cobra goddess and guardian of Lower Egypt (it was too easy to pose as one chosen by her; the snake eyes served as a visible token of the serpent goddess’ favour), and a new name. From now on, she would be known as Meret-Keket – a name bestowed upon her by fellow priestesses and meaning ‘beloved by Keket,’ who was, she was told, a goddess of darkness and chaos who used to take a serpentine form – or just Keket, and she would be a normal human being, except for the fact that she would age oddly slowly. To some, it would seem she did not age at all. But this could not well be, could it, then? Therefore, it wouldn’t be. Simple.

She would lead a perfectly normal life as a priestess and a shadow, and she would never use her miracles again.

Under this guise, she hoped nobody would find her.

\----------------------------------------------------------------

Keket was by herself, while still languishing in the calming pool of human company, as this envoy from her past approached her.

She had harboured no ill thoughts for the moment. The priestess sat in one of the town's many senet houses where it was relatively cool compared to the temperatures outside, a stein of beer by her side, her bare feet crossed at the ankles, and watched a group of humans – scribes, she would think – engaging in a game. The humans played with dedication and enjoyment, which sometimes led to heated discussions, but mainly, they managed to get along. Such a difference to the realms she had come out of! 

She herself was unspotted save for the servant who was tasked with bringing the refreshments, and even he had been urged to forget the priestess’ presence as soon as comfortably possible.

Then she had entered – and there was no mistaking her. She might have been attired very much like a princess, a rogue daughter to the current pharaoh, but still managed to not draw a single eye to herself. Demons were skilled in that department – the more skilled the more intelligent they were, and the more accustomed to and experienced in walking on earth – and Lilith was none of the idiots. This was part of why Keket feared her so much.

Shock had wound its way through Keket’s organism, and she had considered flight – but only for a fracture of a second. The other one was already too close.

Disregarding the humans completely, the demoness almost glided over to the corner in which Keket had made herself comfortable in solitary contemplation and sat next to her, smiling a half-smile at the demon escapee. “You have changed,” she muttered by way of greeting.

Keket kept her peace, as well as her head down and her ears closed. If I don't acknowledge her, she thought desperately, and in vain since she already had recognized her presence, maybe she will just... go away.

“By what name may I address you now, lovely?”

“Keket,” she heard herself grovel.

Whoops. There went her decision to ignore Lilith into non-existence.

“Keket.” The name had a new, kind of odd ring rolling off the monarchess’ tongue. Keket was unsure whether she liked it, though she noticed a shiver blistering through her. “I like it, lovely; it sounds a bit like a game. And dare I say you look magnificent? The jewellery suits you, as does the khol – it makes your eyes ever more prominent, and you have such expressive eyes. The sun gives your skin a beautiful hue, too. You must have been here for quite some time to look this attractive? Well, you did too back then when I found you in the Garden, but this…” she chuckled, “…this is neither here nor there.”

Keket waited in silence.

“Are you not happy at all to see me?”

“Say your part, Lilith,” the priestess tried to keep their conversation curt, “and after that, be so kind as to leave me alone, right? There’s a reason I shed that old skin. I do not have the biggest interest in being reminded of… yesterday’s news.”

“I merely came to talk.” Lilith sounded a bit hurt; Keket lifted a brow at her. Really? Did she think she would fall for... that kind of ruse? 

“And you, you must be endlessly lonely among…” her voice and diction, as well as her facial expression darkened somewhat, “…among Adam’s ill begotten spawn.”

Ah. So this was about the humans and Lilith's personal vendetta against them. Keket sighed. “I don’t have anything to do with your private revenge fantasies,” she rebuffed her, “nor do I intend to. Now if you do not plan to either share a drink with me or drag me back to Hell…”

“We can do that, very well,” Lilith grasped the straw that was just offered to her, calling the servant over, and Keket stared at her in surprise. She had been led to believe that angels and demons, in firm belief in their own superiority, perceived consumption of matter as unworthy of their ethereal physiques. Well, not her, it seemed.

The servant hobbled over, bowing as he went, and filled the clay stein that Lilith out of nowhere held in her hand with strong, sweet Egyptian beer. She thanked the man in perfect Egyptian and turned him away, likely making him forget he had ever served anyone like a priestess or a princess in his lifetime.

Lilith proposed a toast; but Keket still wasn’t done staring. “What do you want?” she asked, lost for words and ways out of this miserable situation.

“I want to talk,” the demoness curtly answered, putting the beer away without having so much as tasted it, “and to keep company to one who separated herself from everything, and everyone.”

“How noble.” Keket snorted. “How did you even find me?”

“Oh.” Her small red mouth curled into a smile. “Do you think I would ever forget a sweet little feathered beauty like you?”

In some ways, Lilith’s compliments stung. Not only because they were underhanded; mostly because Keket, being showered in these appraising attributes, felt much like a doll in the grasp of a little child who was admiring and praising her for the moment, but could only the blink of an eye later decide she had overstayed her welcome and, if she was merciful, merely toss her aside, but if she was in a foul mood, burn her to ashes. Keket felt the desire to wince under these compliments, but kept herself at bay, if just to show no weakness to the monarchess.

“But, honestly, it was mostly detective work,” she gave the first straight answer of this day, “travelling around a bit, having an open eye and an eager ear. Following rumours and hearsay, stories of people who got lost or appeared out of thin air. Then some merchant described you to me, and I knew who I was looking for.”  
So there she had it. She should have remodelled herself more drastically from Rahtiel.

Keket stayed in silence.


	2. Chapter 2

Lilith reached over as if to stroke Keket’s wig; she jerked her head away. No touches. Not now. Not by her.

“Do you come to collect me?” she posed the question that really bothered her, gritting it through her teeth. “Be honest, Lilith, grant me that one mercy. Did your lover send you to drag the runaway back to his duties?”

Was she sent from below? Would Lilith in all her wicked beauty attempt to drag her back? Maybe someday, Keket would be ready to assume her identity as Crawly, the red-haired demon, or Rahtiel of the constellations once again. Maybe someday the thought of black wings would stop tormenting her, and not every feather of any colour she saw on the path she trod would be a cause for alarm. Maybe someday she would be ready, and eager, to serve as any sides’ agent once again. But that moment, that day was not now. Keket needed distance – and if it was distance from her own past selves.

It was bad enough that the monarchess had managed to find her in this reprieve…

For a moment or two, all was silent apart from the sound of Lilith drawing breath between clenched teeth.

“Look at me.” Her voice was calm, but it trembled.

Keket disobeyed.

“I said LOOK AT ME, damnit!”

As Keket followed the order – despite herself – she glanced into a mask of anger and disgust.

“Nobody sends me anywhere,” Lilith croaked, laboriously keeping her calm. Her voice was sharp as a razor. “Nobody gives me orders or threats or bribes. I bow to no-one and require no-one to bow to me. My will is my own, my actions are my own, and my reasons are my own. I am a free being, Keket, no-one is my master, no-one is my slave. I am with Lucifer because he is useful to me, and, yes, maybe a little bit because I like him, as much of a simpleton he might occasionally be. I am all I have in the world, and I need nothing more and nothing less. Is that clear?”

“Crystal clear,” Keket heard herself croak, and the severity melted off Lilith’s face to leave it tenderly smiling once again.

“Marvellous,” the demoness commented. “Why not like this from the beginning, lovely.”

A pause unfurled.

“I like the humans,” Keket said, unrelated to everything and uncertain why she felt the desire to express this at all. “They are… fierce. And odd. And indefinitely more interesting than any demon or angel I ever met.”

“As it is your absolute right to do,” Lilith replied tenderly, if a little unbelievingly.

“To you, Adam is irredeemable.” It was not really a question.

“He would be the same for you had it been your freedom he’d attempted to withhold. You strike me as a being with a healthy appreciation for your own independence, no?”

“So, tell me…” Keket cleared her throat, “what about Eve, then?” Offspring didn’t come from one man alone; that much Keket had managed to glean in her years of living among humankind. Did Lilith want to punish Eve right along with the husband who had, very well, earned her fury?

Lilith smacked her lips. “It was you who tempted her, didn’t you?”

“That was in a past life, Lilith. And I still reckon she – they – deserved to know. She is a sweet person. He might be… a little overzealous, but she doesn’t deserve to be put through… well, through Hell for his… faults.”

Lilith paused a while, seemingly staring into the far off before she answered. The priestess caught herself staring at the demoness’ form as she leant there against the counter, her slender arm, the delicate joints, the finely sculpted neck, the exquisite profile. She wondered how much differently she might look when not convincing humans she was a perfectly normal citizen, thank you very much.   
“I have no use for her,” the demoness muttered. “Not that I hadn’t tried, mind you. I came to her after I heard of their… ejection from paradise – which was some magnificent work by you, lovely, I have to say. I came to her when Adam wasn’t around and put her into a trance so I could calmly talk to her – also so she wouldn’t lie or run away or call for help. She doesn’t need Adam, or depend on him, any more than I did, but it turns out she is much more invested in togetherness and harmony than in her own welfare. She seems to see something positive in him, though what it may be I cannot fathom for the life of me.” A streak of bitterness showed around Lilith's mouth, but she managed to not let it seep out too intensely. “Eve’s choices sadden and infuriate me, but they are hers, and I will not waste more time and energy on her as long as she maintains she wants to stay by that brute’s side. She might get in the way of what I may or may not do to Adam and his offspring, but this is, as well, something she chose. But this…” the demoness sighed, “this need not concern us right now, my lovely. What do you say we turn to more personal matters – like the reason why I sought you out in the first place.”

Like the reason she had sought her out… Keket couldn't help but gulp.

“I am not going back down,” she ventured, sounding less assertive and a lot more panicky than she had hoped. Not yet, at least…

Lilith laughed her little, silvery laugh and reached out a hand to put it on Keket’s wrist – this made the escapee twitch in an onslaught of conflicting sensations. On the one hand, Lilith’s touch was very gentle and, yes, almost sweetly welcome, and her words indicated that she understood what Keket said and hadn’t come to enact any violence on her; on the other hand, the short time Crawly had spent in Hell had palpably taught him to never trust anything that crawled out of this hole further than he could stretch his arm.

Lilith had been human once, yes, but that did not exempt her from the possibility of wickedness. Quite the opposite, Keket had learnt.

“Maybe you will,” she grinned, “maybe you won’t. All in due time, my lovely, and by your own accord – it does not concern me in the slightest.”

By her… own accord? No-one had given Keket so much in the last years.

“You look – and feel – terribly anxious,” the demoness continued, and for one, her concern appeared genuine. “Terribly… not at home within your own skin, which is something no person should ever feel like. As if you could use somebody to talk to.”

“And that somebody would be you?” Keket could feel her brow rising upon her forehead. Something within her wanted to give in and allow Lilith to get close. But she was not quite at that point. She was still vigilant – Lilith was close to Lucifer, and Lucifer wouldn’t like to hear one of his reluctant disciples was hiding from him and his duties. Or, conversely, he would like to hear about it much too much for Keket’s taste.

Lilith’s hand squeezed her wrist. “I am who came and found you,” she purred. “I am who cared. You can send me away, that is your call… still, my lovely, I don’t think you should be alone right now. I don’t think anyone should be alone while they’re struggling, so… I’m there, and I’m listening.”

Keket contemplated saying something… but in the end, she didn’t. She grasped for her stein instead and took a big swallow of the strong beer.

This could be an interesting evening.

\------------------------------------------------------------

A couple of hours, and beers, later:

The air was thick with alcohol, and sweat, and elation.

Lilith laughed. Her laugh sounded high and mighty and silvery and glittery.

Keket laughed along. She wasn’t sure if her heart was in it, but her lungs certainly were, judging by the way they ached. It felt amazing – relieving – to let go for this one time and stop feeling all these worries and insecurities.

For the first, she had felt uneasy with what the beer, consumed in these quantities, had done to her. It had felt as if there were something furry in her mouth, something hot in her throat and stomach; the world around her seemed to devolve, to get less concrete and real with every sip she took. She felt weightless and clumsy at the same time, wanted to laugh at everything and still had never been less amused. It got progressively harder to concentrate and control her own physique and thoughts. She had told Lilith about it and voiced her distress, but Lilith had waved her off. “You’ll get to enjoy it,” the demoness had chuckled, “as soon as you’ve gotten used to it.”

They made fun of everything. They made fun of Adam and Eve, misguided jailer and his turtle dove, and how easily the both of them had fallen for Crawly’s ruse. Lilith gloried in the knowledge that, while he had lived long and had many children, after all, Adam had succumbed to mortality like the common dust worm he was, and had always been. Keket shivered at that, but she hardly let the demoness notice.

They made fun of God, who had seemingly believed that putting them in all too close proximity to a tree with fruit that had an ominous warning or curse upon it could go well for any span of time.

They made fun of the angels who put on all these high and mighty and self-important facades and who claimed to know the truths of life and how one was supposed to act, and had the audacity to want to play rulers in the Almighty’s absence. In the end, Keket opined, they were all cast into a world they didn’t know and couldn’t predict or put into concise words, and nobody knew the way – the angels and demons just had different ways of concealing it. The demons had anger and rebellion and lashing out at everything, while the angels had their stiffness and rules and stuck-upness.

“How philosophical,” Lilith had grinned, her nose and cheeks glowing red from the beer. Keket’s distaste for Lilith’s arm around her shoulders wasted away the more she drank. “You should write a scroll with your thoughts. Maybe they’ll enshrine it in Thot’s temple, or in Alexandria, and drink to you and your wisdom.”

Keket couldn’t tell whether she herself had been made fun of with that – but for one, she didn’t care.

It felt marvellous not to care.

They made fun of the demons who were convinced of little more than their ability and, yea, obligation to shout their ‘no’, their declination and disgust into the world’s face.

They even made fun of Lucifer and Beelzebub whose lust for power had led them to a moist, mouldy outpost of what was the glorious city of Heaven…

Keket clung to Lilith’s lips for dear life. The more she listened to her, her drunken, over-the-top ramblings, the more it dawned on her that this was what she really wanted: to live a life as precisely herself, no more and no less, by her own rules and far off from anyone who would want to label her angel, demon or human. Or anything in between.

Keket, or Crawly, or whatever may become of them wanted to be a category unto their own, just as Lilith was right now.

The wind was mild and soft and breezy, cooling the air down to a point where they began to shiver a bit, as the two women left the senet house, running, still shouting and drunk, Keket’s wig bouncing in accord with Lilith’s natural hair. The sky was tainted in the colours of the setting sun and dawning night, and Keket felt… free. Utterly free. For the first time in her existence, as angel, demon or refugee, she felt utterly unbound to every being in existence. She held Lilith’s hand as they ran, her head was filled with her laughter, and it never had felt so marvellous to simply run.

The reeds were waist high and the ground underfoot moist and sticky as Lilith finally stopped and Keket, unprepared, stumbled in an attempt to keep both herself and the demoness upright; Lilith caught her as if she weighed nothing, kept holding one hand and put the other one in the small of her companion's back. Keket thought she should be laughing further, but she felt she couldn’t.

Lilith, however, seemed to be absolutely within her bounds, her powers, and her comfort zone. Her cheek brushed her companion’s, and her hand steadied her amiably. “This, we call an embrace,” she whispered into Keket’s ear. The refugee answered with a giggle. Did Lilith think she was stupid? She’d been living among humans for a couple ten, twenty years… 

“And this…”

She pressed her lips on Keket’s.

“… this, we call a kiss”.


	3. Chapter 3

Keket stared at Lilith for a second, closing and opening her mouth, unsure what to say, unsure what to think; then the demoness stroked the corner of her mouth with an extended index finger. “Oh no, little bird,” she muttered, “no thinking right now. Don’t spoil the moment. Let’s just enjoy this beautiful evening, just you and me and the Nile, and…”

Keket reprised their kiss.

Lilith gave in with no second’s hesitation.

Before Keket knew anything more, they were on the ground – cool muck embraced her shoulders and darkened her dress, Lilith’s hands held her while her own dug into Lilith’s hair, Lilith’s lips caressed her, nibbled at her neck and collarbone, while her own gasped for breath, and though her lungs felt they produced more laughter, something in her throat obstructed the air flow so it came out as sighs, sobs, or groans. There was this odd sensation of need beneath her ribs, of greed, of longing, of needing to be with her. The touches were new and alien, hovered in an odd no-creature’s-land between pleasant and repellent.

She was completely helpless, malleable in Lilith’s hands, and this only invoked a faint, cold fear in her. That fear was overpowered by her heart beating up to her jaw, by the prickling around her midriff, by the homely sweet warmth the monarchess emitted. Keket was bathed in sweat, cold sweat as well as hot sweat, and her muscles twitched to do something, though her brain couldn’t fathom what.

What even was Lilith doing? Keket was at an utter loss. But did she enjoy it? Yes. Yes, yes, yes, she enjoyed it much too much. Very soon her physical body would stop being able to bear it anymore…

Hissing like a snake (this, however, teased genuine relaxation from Keket; the serpent theme made her feel at home) Lilith returned to eye level, framing Keket’s face with both hands. “Give in to me,” she hissed, “let me take the lead, lovely, I promise you won’t be hurt. Will you put yourself into my hands?”

“Yes,” Keket heard herself whisper. Her throat was sore, so utterly sore.

Lilith breathed a smile, shifted her weight somewhat and detached one hand from Keket’s face to let it travel, affectionately, inquisitively, spider-like, down her body. Keket moaned, unable to keep her physique from mildly, flowingly, following the fallen human’s touches with serpentine, sparse movements, offering herself up heedlessly, recklessly, full of dread and desire and unable to either comprehend and order them or devise a plan of what to do with these.

“Pick a gender and form yourself according to it,” Lilith asked her, kissing her cheekbones, and, as an afterthought, added with a laugh, “or don’t… I think I can work with one who has both…”

Mindlessly, Keket rolled her head aside, choosing willy-nilly and feeling the pressure, warmth, tension beneath Lilith’s hand that had come to rest between her legs sluggishly intensify as her body followed her mind’s choice.

“Hey… hey, lovely,” Lilith whispered, shoving the fugitive’s head back in a central position so she had to look up to her, “Don’t run away from me. Don’t deny this moment to me… to us.”

Lilith’s eyes were deep and shimmering brown. Reassuring. Comforting.

Lilith’s palm pushed, her fingers gingerly felt for Keket’s flesh.

The pulsing between her legs heightened.

The monarchess was right, Keket suddenly realized. She was running away, and she had run away much too often in her past. She had to stand and face…

Lilith’s eyes grew larger.

Serpentine hissing began to fill Keket’s mind.

The pulsing between her legs grew simultaneously more forceful and more distant, as if she were lifted out of her body, only attached to it by a thin canal.

… stand and face what was happening…

Keket pressed her eyes close, contorting.

Lilith’s rust-brown eyes flashed in the blackness.

Then, as she opened her eyes again, Lilith, the reeds and muck, the gentle rushing of the Nile, the dark Egyptian night sky, the oppressive and yet so alluring feel of her skin and weight and of the little gasping breaths Keket took – all this was gone. Keket was Crawly again, black, genderless and reptilian, but Crawly was in the sky, between the clouds, close to the sun, and something in the distance caught his eye. Something that had no business being in the sky, should it not happen to carry the sun disk.

Ra’s skiff.

But Ra was a normal human with eyes that saw nowhere, and his attendants Set, Sekhmet, Thot were nowhere to be seen. It was a normal skiff, on a normal stream, fisherpeople for all Crawly could tell, miniscule compared to the snake staring down at them, but still this felt mystical and strong and meaningful. Crawly hissed and flicked his tail.

He was Apep.

His task and duty was to swallow the barge whole, ending all upon it.

And no Set to push him back with his spear…

You can be powerful, a laughing, smoky feminine voice promised, sounding from nowhere at all. I can make you so. If you are willing to ally with me, to work with me, to be my eyes and ears and, occasionally, hands upon Earth where you feel so homely, I can make you next to Lucifer or me in power. You will be my favourite, you will be protected by me, ah, beloved by me, and you will never have to deal with any of them again. Not even honoured Prince Regent Beelzebub.

Crawly hesitated. It was clear what she wanted him to do. Yet he didn’t… the very thought of following through with this constricted his throat.

Strike. You are many times their better – strike and devour them.

Crawly shivered and wound and shook his scaly, flat head no.

 _Strike._ They deserve your wrath.

No. They never…

**_STRIKE._ **

“NO!”

The cry rang in her ears, ached in her throat and hung in the air like a storm cloud – for some moments, Keket was so terrified by these sensations that she thought she would utter another, more high-pitched and inarticulate scream. Only as she had taken a few deep breaths and her eyes had cleared of the vision, Keket understood that she was back within her body, humanoid and genderless once more, that she was back upon Earth and that Lilith, monarchess of Hell and lover to the first fallen Lucifer, lay next to her in the muck with a tender smile upon her lips.

“One has to admire your resilience,” the demoness conceded with a smile while patting the mud next to her – a clear invitation to lay back down.

Keket didn’t, however. “What… what did you do to me?” she asked, breathlessly.

Lilith pursed her lips before answering – Keket had to fight a jolt of admiration piercing her, a jolt of fondness for this exceptionally sweet and adorable face, but wasn’t completely successful. “Just a bit of hypnotism,” she admitted, looking up to Keket with utter tenderness, “to drive a point home. I am impressed with your strength to resist me, lovely.”

“My strength.” Keket, finding back to herself slowly, turned to stare into the far-off. “As if I had any strength to speak of.”

“Oh, plenty.”

“Ah yes?” Keket’s voice was violent and fervent. “So why is it that I am here, locked out from everywhere, locked in with myself? Why is it that I let them drive me away from both spheres, why is it that I am homeless and alone and…”

“Lovely.” Meanness and sinisterness had vanished from Lilith’s voice as she rose to embrace Keket and make her look at her. She sounded serious and earnest, all playfulness banished, for the first time since the demons had met. “Lovely, what nonsense are you talking? Look at you, making your own way without consideration for anyone else and leaving behind whatever you find doesn’t satisfy you, consequences be damned! Look at you, being your own creature, answering to none! This was why I thought you suitable, and sympathetic, in the first place.”

“Do you think I am here by myself because I like it?” It was a long time, Keket noticed, since she had allowed herself to feel this intensely and fervently about anything, and express it, too. “I am by myself because those above are snooty-nosed know-it-alls and those below are violent brainless thugs. I don’t fit – I don’t belong to either.”

“Why do I sense this is a problem for you?”

“Because it leaves me between the fronts, all alone.”

“Not anymore.”

Silence.

“If you don’t want it.”

“You’re a demon, Lilith.” Keket’s voice was low and lethargic as she said this. She reached for a reed to pick it out of the marshy ground, twisted it between her fingers, tried not to start plucking it apart. “And you’re with Lucifer. I hugely doubt…”

“… that I would be any different?”

Keket merely stared at her. Lilith laughed.

“I thought I expressed to you how different I am.”

“You’re with Lucifer.”

“He knows he has no control over what I do with my time.”

“Whyever would you do such a thing?”

“Because I like you, lovely – that was not a lie. And look at all the wasted potential. I couldn’t bear to watch you making a bonfire of yourself.”

Silence.

“It mustn’t be a disadvantage to be a creature, a category unto your own. In my opinion, individualism is the only path worth taking… it may be a lonely existence now and then, but I find it intensely fulfilling. For one, you can choose your own company if you’re not bound to anyone.”

“And you think I can shoulder it?”

“Definitely.”

“Can you show me?”

Lilith smirked. “It would be my pleasure.”

Keket morphed into Crawly as soon as she had finished; Lilith quickly followed suit, taking her albino snake form, and the two demons spent the next few weeks, months, maybe even years beneath scales and locked in ever tightening knots and embraces. They hissed and flicked their tongues at each other, first all by themselves, then among the humans who Lilith took pleasure in scaring or wounding, Crawly merely in annoying. He needed her then; needed her intensely, needed her for company, comfort and for her uproarious laughter, for her easy-going nature and untheatrical view of the world, in her assertion that humans were there to be annoyed, if not even more, needed her for their reptilian embraces. Needed her for telling him to use and reinforce his own imagination, to never rely on anything or anyone above or beside himself, and for her approval when he had managed a situation or arranged for a pitfall in a way that he thought of as effective.

He needed her, mostly, for building emotional barriers and defences which would not only keep him safe from the world, but also from his demonic brethren. If it worked against her, he reckoned, whatever and whomever would he still have to fear?

“You don’t need them,” Lilith whisper-hissed into his ear the moment before he fell asleep for the first time in his existence, “and you don’t need their categories. You are strong, and you are versatile, and you are you. You’re not a demon, you’re not an angel – you are you, that gives you power, and they will never take that away from you.”

‘I don’t need them’ – ‘I don’t need anything or anyone’ became the first and strongest bastion Crawly armed, and protected himself with. ‘I don’t need them’ saved him countless times.

In time, he dared leaving his scales again (Lilith stared at his wigless bald and, he was very well aware, stifled a snicker. “I liked your glorious curls much better,” was all she offered by way of comment, and this was probably the reason Crowley decided in a bout of half-childish peevishness that he’d let his hair reappear, as flaming red as ever, but keep it cropped short this time) and also making a return to the realm below. Equipped with ‘I don’t need any of you,’ looking his demonic brethren and supervisors in the eye with superior untouchability was a piece of cake. It was only a temporary thing, though, since he could argue some successes in his work upon Earth, so Beelzebub thought it profitable to grant his request to remain stationed on the surface and present it as her own marvellous idea.

This, too, was a success that built Crawly up and reinforced his idea that playing creatures for all it was worth, getting his way through sneakiness and trickeries, was fun. Sure, he would now and then have to deal with an assignment or something like that, but mostly, he would be free to do mischief by himself.

Lilith, even though she repeatedly expressed her pride in Crawly’s ability to do without anyone including her, never really left his field of sight… except, interestingly enough, the times he, by pure force of chance, ran into the angel Aziraphale whom he knew and remembered well from Eden and Noah’s ark, and who, he had to admit, kind of intrigued him. He didn’t fit the blueprint, this angel didn’t. Could it be that the capacity for independent thought was nestled deep inside him? One could hang around him a bit, the demon deliberated – probe him a bit. See how things developed.

Not that he would form any attachment. He didn’t need him, after all.

He needed nobody, and nothing.

Soon, however, he tired of Lilith’s teachings, her gleeful malice and her conviction that it was her and, by extension, also his right to torment the humans any way she felt like. He would never take it to the levels she seemed to think were appropriate. Lilith accepted this, but Crawly could see in her demeanour and hear in her voice that she derided him for it, all the same. If any, he desired a more considerate companion, someone, perhaps, who appreciated this place that endeared itself so much to him in an equal measure. Failing to turn someone like that up, however, he’d gratefully opt for being by himself.

Maybe it was time for another transformation.

Maybe he wouldn’t need Lilith so much anymore in the future.


	4. Bonus Verse: At Petronius' New Restaurant

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Crowley first tries his hand at a blessing after he fell and Aziraphale is, I regret to say, a bit of a bastard. Be warned of fluff and silliness.

It had gotten late, and dark, and lonely at Petronius’ new restaurant. Humans had filed in and out, eaten, spoken their parts, paid and left, and gradually the angel and demon had remained the last customers present, but nobody seemed to be particularly eager to show them the door. Mostly they went undetected and undisturbed; people were concentrated on more vital tasks. Crowley, having by now taken off the laurel crown but paying utmost attention his sunglasses wouldn’t slip, had tried the oysters and found them so-so; most of them he had shoved towards Aziraphale who had wolfed them down with gusto. The angel also wasn’t half as cagey and drawn-back as his guest; to the contrary, he was downright jovial. Pleasant. Amicable, even. Crowley could tell that his acquaintance, whom he had deliberated to call ‘the poster boy,’ enjoyed himself to a degree that bordered on the bothersome.

He treated him as if there wasn’t half a world between them – no system of faith, or politics. That bothered him, but Crowley wouldn’t address it – wouldn’t admit that it even had crossed his mind.

The poster boy made a show of his ignorance.

“… and, I say, what much has changed? No, I am honestly curious. Of course you are a demon now and of the opposite faction and I shouldn’t go… associating with you, you know, but what really is the difference in life quality? Can you tell?”

What really was the difference? Crowley resisted the urge to scoff at his interlocutor and took a swig of the thin, mild liquid they called wine here. He thought with some wistfulness back to the Egyptian beer that had been sweeter, heavier and stronger and wasn’t sure, though, which one he would have preferred.

What really was the difference? Well, maybe the fact that you constantly needed to have your eyes everywhere, that trusting anyone amounted to suicide, and that his goals were now diametrically opposite to what he had worked for earlier. That was what he thought.

But then, he didn’t need anyone either way…

“No blessings anymore, for one,” was what he heard himself grunt.

“You mean you are… unable?” the angel asked.

“Might as well be,” Crowley mumbled.

Pause.

“But, I say, have you ever really… tried?”

Pause, and a scathing look through tinted glasses.

“I mean, since you… you know. Have you _tried_ bestowing a blessing?”

Crowley hoped the look with which he needled his acquaintance these moments showed well enough that he hadn’t, and what he thought of the idea.

Aziraphale, however, if he caught his meaning, reacted in a very odd way. He straightened up and said, “Then I challenge you, Cra… I mean Crowley. I challenge you to try and put a blessing on me.”

Crowley’s brow arched. He played along for the moment being because he couldn’t think of anything better to talk about. “And what do you suggest I bless you with?”

“Let’s go the simplest route,” the poster boy either had not parsed or was resolved to utterly ignore Crowley’s attempts at biting sarcasm, “just put a… a simple, general good-luck-blessing on me. It can’t be all that hard, right? And if I, I don’t know,” he chuckled, “if I drop this cup and it shatters, or stumble as I get up and tear this table down with me, or if I walk away and run into… into any bad humans, we know what’s happened.”

Crowley snorted. “Only way you could be any sappier about this whole thing,” he snapped, “was if you asked me to bestow a love blessing.” 

Aziraphale beamed. “Even better!” he exclaimed, which made Crowley doubt his ability to read derision or his intelligence period, “What a wonderful idea, Crowley. It has to come so naturally to anyone of ours. I challenge you. Do it.”

Crowley felt he wanted to snort again, but the sound got caught up in his throat. “That’s stupid and you are well aware of that and I won’t do it,” he grumbled, turning toward his wine again, shifting the cup about in his hands.

But then, was it? The effects of a blessing for love backfiring on an angel of all beings… it was bound to be interesting to observe such a thing.

“Why is it stupid, now?” Aziraphale asked.

Crowley sneered. If you don’t see why yourself, angel, he thought, I’ve no idea if there’s anything that might be done for you.

“I just won’t do it, Aziraphale. Do you need a whole inscription about the reason why I won’t play your silly game with you? Makes no sense, either way; I mean, you’re an angel. What use is it to bless a ‘being of love’ with even more love?”

“Then what is the worst that could happen?”

“I don’t know, and I don’t care. I just won’t do it.”

“I challenge you,” Aziraphale reiterated with the doofiest grin on his face.

This time, as he turned toward the angel and stared at him threateningly, he lowered his face so he could peer over the rims of his glasses – but the poster boy, that radiant little ignorant… angel, he didn’t even dim his smile. It seemed that in his little featherbrain, this was the idea of the century.

“But don’t go yammering at me if it rebounds on you and you start hating everything and everyone – and everything and everyone starts hating you,” Crowley warned, readying himself to call on the higher (or lower?) powers.

“Trust in me to be able to counteract that,” the angel said, chipper.

“It will all be your stupid fault.”

“Duly noted.”

Well, Crowley thought, gathering his senses and powers, you asked for it.

Mostly, bestowing a blessing or working a miracle works thus: the miracle-worker or blessing-giver has to concentrate on, or speak, the Enochian word for the thing he wants to invoke or bring down upon someone while tapping celestial energies to translate it to reality. Enochian was a magical language; none of the words in it were without ethereal meaning, and only angels were able to use it. Now, as Crowley collected himself and tried to conjure up the Enochian word for ‘love,’ he found it repellent, ugly, yes, even dangerous; no, Enochian wouldn’t work anymore. Still, he found he had tapped into some sort of energy, some power, he just needed… needed a different word, a different language, to channel it and make it do what he intended for it to.

Sumerian?

Akkadian?

Egyptian?

Hebrew?

Greek?

Latin?

It didn’t really matter, Crowley thought in the end. What was important was his intent, and the tingling he felt in his fingertips. So he put all his concentration on the poster boy’s still smiling, broad little face and his beaming bluish-grey eyes, bundled the energy he had tapped into and the word of the thing he wished that power to accomplish, and applied both with a vaguely circular gesture to his interlocutor.

It felt like something had went through him – something bristling, but also icy cold, but also strangely snug and comfortable. Something almost homely. Something definitely… heavenly. Crowley felt paralyzed and stupefied by it, but also strangely soothed and irate at the same time, though unable to act on anything.

He only slowly came back to control over his own muscles as he lowered his hand again and put it down on the tabletop. He stared at it for a bit; though he knew this was his hand, his hand as it had ever been, it felt weirdly detached, separate from him at large. As if it had done something out of character purely by some sort of alien, independent muscle-volition.

“Feel anything yet?” he heard himself ask Aziraphale and was surprised at how level and calm he sounded. It wasn’t that he didn’t feel calm, per se; he would have imagined his voice to sound even more sluggish and slurred than what it did.

“No rushes of loathing if you mean that,” the angel shot back, pleasantly.

Which meant one of two things. Either it had worked, and Crowley was still able to do blessings, whatever that may mean for him; or he had utterly kidded himself before and he had been able to achieve absolutely nothing.

“What about you?” Aziraphale asked, serenely, and Crowley jumped.

“What should I… why should… I mean. You… did you do something to me?”

Aziraphale merely smiled.

“Angel. Did – you – do – something to me?”

“I don’t know, Crowley. Did I? What does it feel like?”

Crowley opened and closed his mouth soundlessly a couple of times, feeling and looking distinctly like a fish on dry land. A part of him wanted to punch that poster boy, another part wanted to break into a fit of side-splitting laughter. A little spark of him thought he should introduce poster boy to Lilith, she would enjoy his mock-innocent, mock-wholesome wilfulness a great deal, and that was very much indeed to say for an angel.

“You’ll take it back,” he grumbled, his throat sore.

“I didn’t confirm I did anything at all,” the angel replied, utterly serene and coy.

“You’ll take it back either way!”

“Or else?”

And this was where angel and demon reached a stalemate neither of them were able to manoeuvre themselves out of. Crowley was as confused by what he presumably had done, if he had succeeded, as what was allegedly done to him, and could not predict the consequences of any; Aziraphale was so smugly satisfied that he thought there must have been something, though he couldn’t put his finger on what exactly, and he found that his train of thought was going in circles, so he attempted to undercut it by taking a big gulp of wine.

“I guess it will wear off in due time, anyway,” he muttered as time came for the angel and demon to say their good-byes, and Aziraphale smiled.

“I guess so, too.”

“Then everything will be back to normal.”

“If things aren’t normal right now, that is.”

“Sure. We’ll just have to wait and see and observe what changes, if anything.”

“Sounds good to me. Shall we come together once again to compare our findings?”

“Nah, let’s not. I mean if we run into each other, fine, but…”

“But we won’t plan for it. I understand.”

‘I understand…’ Crowley rolled his eyes. Damnable heavenly poster child.

“I’ll be thrilled to hear of the blessings you do.”

With which the angel turned and walked away, swiftly and energetically.

Crowley stared at his back as he grew more and more distant and finally vanished into the Roman night, certain that he would not forget this angel and their encounter and if he never in his eternity of an existence would run into him again. What an exceptional angel, indeed.


End file.
